“Your conversion is of the suddenest,” Gervase said smiling, but the praise of Dorothy brought a warm flush of pleasure to his cheek. His love was a thing so new and so incomprehensible to himself that he preferred to dwell upon it in secret; and besides, he felt that she was so lifted above him that he dared not trust himself to speak of her. It did not come to him with surprise that Macpherson, whose cynicism he regarded as a matter of course, should have been captivated by her grace and spirit. It was the most natural thing in the world. But when he came to think of himself as her lover, the thought of his own unworthiness grew so great that it seemed to raise a barrier between them that it was a vain presumption to attempt to surmount.
So he passed lightly over Macpherson´s suggestion, and assured him that he had not forgotten the warning that he had given him before the journey began. Then, with some solicitude, he insisted on his having his wound looked to, and making use of his own wardrobe as far as it would supply his wants.
The old soldier in his careless camaraderie, was at no time loath either to lend or to borrow, and after his wound (which, he said, proved the thickness of his skull) had been dressed, arrayed himself in a clean shirt and stockings, and then lighted a pipe of fragrant Virginia, to which he had been for some time a stranger.
Gervase in the meantime had with some difficulty prevailed on Mistress Sproule to furnish him with a second supper, and as she placed it on the table she cast a look of indignation on the unconscious Macpherson. She watched him with lowering brows, blowing a cloud of smoke in his placid contentment; then her pent-up feelings broke out. “Marry,” she said, “there are some folk who care not what trouble they make in the world. To break into your house, and eat up your meat without even a ‘by your leave´, may be manners in some parts, but here we call it by a harder name.”
“In some parts where I have been,” said Macpherson grimly; “they have a bridle for the mouth of the shrew, and lead her down to the Market-place, where she stands for a warning to her neighbours. Your husband would be a happier man did the custom hold here.”